Businessman Nelson Tanure, whose cell phone was seized by the Federal Police in Operation Compliance Zero , launched this Wednesday, January 14, is now being investigated more thoroughly for his role in the network of influence associated with Banco Master , owned by Daniel Vorcaro .

Prior to the operation, Tanure was the target of an investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission (CVM), along with Banco Master, for an alleged scheme to inflate the share price of Ambipar , which is undergoing judicial reorganization.

Funds managed by Master, such as Vexor and Texas FIA, also had stakes in the company. In the Texas fund, Rioprevidência – investigated for investing almost R$ 1 billion in Master's financial instruments – had even made an investment of R$ 100 million.

At the end of last year, the fund had approximately 90% of its portfolio exposed to Ambipar shares, with the remainder divided between Emae and Alliar , companies also related to Nelson Tanure.

Tanure also made a significant portion of his moves through funds managed by MAM Asset, a management company belonging to the Vorcaro group. It was through the Bordeaux FIP Multiestratégia fund, managed by MAM Asset, that Nelson Tanure won the Copel Telecomunicações auction with a bid of R$ 2.5 billion.

In the reference forms, Bordeaux currently appears alongside the Garonne fund as the sole partners of the company, both managed by Banco Master. In the same document, the funds are attributed to businessman Nelson Tanure and Artur Martins de Figueiredo.

Figueiredo is the director responsible for Banvox, which is under investigation in Operation Hidden Carbon , which investigated the link between the financial market and money laundering schemes attributed to the Primeiro Comando da Capital (PCC). He was also a director of Trustee , which managed a significant portion of the funds linked to Tanure.

Nelson Tanure's connections to Banvox also appear in another fund managed by the businessman and handled by MAM Asset, called Estocolmo. In this fund—which Tanure previously used to take an aggressive stance in Gafisa —R$ 386 million is allocated to Banvox debentures.

Another R$ 232 million from the Stockholm fund is invested in stakes in the Bordeaux Multistrategy Private Equity Investment Fund, a vehicle with assets of R$ 2.6 billion that concentrates investments in Bordeaux Participações, which won the auction for Copel Comunicações.

At Bordeaux Participações, official documents indicate that the person responsible for operations is Silvio Barreto da Silva, Tanure's attorney in other businesses. Another vehicle managed by Master, the Opus FIP Multiestratégia RL fund, holds approximately R$ 1 billion in Bordeaux debentures.

The position in the Bordeaux fund is shared with Ilha Patmos FIM CP IE, which is the largest fund managed by MAM Asset, with R$ 3.12 billion in assets. Its largest exposure is in the Phoenix FIP Multiestratégia RL fund, with R$ 2.2 billion allocated. The structure is the same one Tanure used to have exposure to EMAE.

Ilha Patmos also has R$87 million in exposure to the Savana FIP Multiestratégia fund and R$18 million to the Fonte Saúde FIP Multiestratégia fund, which invests in Alliar shares. Another R$983 million of the fund is allocated to short positions in PRIO options and R$675 million to long positions in PRIO options.

Unable to assess

In the latest financial statements for the Patmos Island fund, covering the fiscal years 2023 and 2024, RSM, the auditing firm, declined to issue an opinion on its operations because the financial statements for the invested funds had not been provided.

"Therefore, even having carried out certain audit procedures, we were unable to assess the existence of possible distortions in the accounting records of the Invested Funds, which, if they exist, would affect the value of the units of the Invested Funds and, consequently, the value of the Fund's investment and the results generated by them," says RSM in an audit report.

The conclusion is similar to that of other audits conducted on funds managed by Master and related to Nelson Tanure.

In the Bordeaux fund, for example, the BKR audit firm stated that "we were unable to obtain sufficient appropriate audit evidence to support our audit opinion on these financial statements." The reason, they stated, was the lack of audited financial statements from the investee Bordeaux Participações.

The same outcome was repeated in the Stockholm fund, whose consultant Bakertilly refrained from giving an opinion due to a lack of information from the Bordeaux fund and Banvox, in which it had exposure via debentures.

"These debentures are not characterized as highly liquid financial assets and do not have real guarantees regarding their effective realization," says Bakertilly.

"As of the issuance of this report, the audit of the financial statements of the debenture issuer as of December 31, 2024, had not been completed, which made it impossible to obtain sufficient and appropriate audit evidence regarding the aforementioned investment," concluded the Stockholm fund's audit.

In a statement sent to NeoFeed , his defense asserted that Tanure has "no corporate relationship whatsoever with Banco Master, of which he was a client in recent years, under the same conditions in which he is also served by other well-known financial institutions in the market."

"Businessman Nelson Sequeiros Rodriguez Tanure informs that the only measure imposed on him was the seizure of his cell phone, and with this, the businessman is certain that during the investigations carried out by the Supreme Federal Court, the non-existence of any alleged illicit practice arising from this relationship will be definitively demonstrated," the statement says.